Amit Kataria comes from a humble background. Brought up in Choma village, Gurgaon, Haryana by his father, a farmer and mother, a housewife, he always dreamt of making a change in the society. Never having let his walking disability come in the way of his dreams, today he has successfully transformed the lives of many in his village by imparting computer literacy and in the process, setting a precedence worth following.

Amit’s journey began in 2007, “I completed my primary education in Choma but beyond that level of education, there was no opportunity there so I decided to study at a school in West Patel Nagar and passed my tenth and twelfth class there. In my final year, I came back to my village in 2006. I realized that most villagers owned land and money but they had little or no literacy especially in computing. They were ignorant of the need for computer skills. I found that this was the biggest need of my village and its future generations. That was when I decided to start a computer learning institute in my area.”

Students in Rose Computer Academy

With a vision to spread computer literacy throughout India, especially in rural areas, Amit started his venture ROSE Computer Academy in 2007, when he was only nineteen years of age. Having learnt computers, he realized its potential in making his community independent and in the long run, in contributing to strengthening of the economy and the nation at large. At no point of time did Amit lose heart in the face of difficulties even when finances were few and far between, he persisted. “I still remember September 7, 2005, the day when I had earned my first hundred rupees. When I set out to start my institute, I had twenty-three thousand rupees of savings. My maternal uncle agreed to lend me one lakh rupees and I could start my computer lab.”

Amit’s academy has so far trained 300 students from his village, offering courses such as Basic computing, Java, Graphic Designing, Tally, C++ and many others. His is the only academy in Palam Vihar, Gurgaon which offers different kinds of computer courses under one roof, working 18 hours a day. Some of his students have also gone ahead and opened their own enterprises, while others have taken up jobs. Some start working at the academy itself.

One of the students at ROSE Academy is seventeen year old Ashok Silwal. Born in a small village of Nepal, Ashok came to India in 2007. His father is a bus driver at a school in Gurgaon and had no money to support his education so he went back to Nepal and enrolled for a correspondence course in India. “In Gurgaon, my father met Amit Kataria sir. Sir needed an office boy, so I started working with him at the Academy. I soon developed an interest in learning computers. I completed a Certificate Course in Computer Application and Desk Top Publishing and also completed my schooling here. Then I started teaching at the ROSE Academy and earned salary also. Now I am able to contribute to my family too,” Ashok smiles, gleaming with pride.

ROSE Academy has provided computer skills and employment opportunity to many like Ashok. Besides computer education, ROSE Academy also provides learning assistance to students in their studies, considerably brining down the examination failure rate. As Amit puts it, “ROSE academy is like the rose flower that spreads its fragrance everywhere.” True to its name, the work and virtues of the Academy are an inspiration by every measure!

We read, we learn, we understand. Sites like the one you are currently reading, along with countless other blogs, books, newspapers make up our reading spectrum. Make us aware, make us improve.

But what if we were to be visually impaired? How would we fare with a total lack of reading material? Did you know that most of the material available so easily to us is just not accessible for the visually impaired? In fact, only 0.5% of books are made accessible to the visually impaired in India. So, how do we ensure that those with visual impairment are able to read all those wonderful things that we come across regularly everyday?

This is where BookBole steps in. An initiative of Inclusive Planet, BookBole is a website that is designed for easy access for the visually impaired. Most visually impaired use text-to-speech converting software. Now, while there are standard guidelines for websites to ensure that text-to-speech software can easily ‘read’ them out, most websites do not adhere to these guidelines. The result is a lot of clutter and subsequent loss of information for the visually impaired. Bookbole solves this by making varied content available in easily accessible form.

The Problem

With the digitization of content as a result of the internet, as well as specific governmental and non-governmental initiatives to increase the volume of accessible content, there is now much more accessible content though the volume of content remains a major issue. However the problem is not just one of quantity but of relevancy i.e. of not just responding to general needs but specific user requirements. Large-scale global initiatives to make content accessible are just a drop in the ocean, albeit a very useful one. They can only cater to some needs of some people in some parts of world. With so much information captured in partially or fully inaccessible formats (print or digital non-readable formats) how does one respond to culture, language, industry and domain specific needs?

The Solution

The answer to this decentralized and hydra-headed problem is a decentralized community-driven solution. If similarly placed print and visually impaired across the world can connect with each other and share their efforts to fulfill their specific needs then there is a durable and dynamic solution at hand.

From books to class notes, journals to cooking tips, product reviews to personal stories. BookBole is all about the small stuff, but on a really large scale. A vibrant universe where people reach out, connect and fulfil each other’s needs. A universe created by aggregating the pools of accessible content that the visually impaired community has created for itself. A place where the value to the community of an individual effort is truly unlocked. Sharing that goes to the heart of the problem.

Bookbole.com is the consequence of this thought process. Designed exclusively for the 300 million-strong global print impaired community, it enables them to connect with each other and share accessible content, including books, notes, articles, blogs, audio recordings and so on, and furthermore, to build conversations around this content. It is a social network, with a difference. In the fashion of all things simple and useful, Bookbole will no doubt come to mean different things to different people across the world – a learning tool for some, an entertainment platform for others, and for all, a place to make friends and have conversations.

BookBole’s vision is that of a large, vibrant, pulsating community that shares useful content and conversations in a more-that-just-accessible environment, and where publishers and content-creators across the world, see the value of making available their content in mutual beneficial arrangements. Going forward, the largest community of visually and print impaired people in the world could see Bookbole become a social network, a content platform, a marketplace and a policy platform rolled into one. The makings of a true social venture.

Azadpura is a village in Bundelkhand region. This area faces acute water scarcity and one problem that the women faced was a faulty well which required urgent repairing. The women aired this problem on Radio Bundelkhand and within four days the concerned authority replaced the missing wheel of the well. This is the power of Radio Bundelkhand, an initiative of Development Alternatives.

Community Radio for facilitating dialogue and interactive communication

The purpose of setting up Radio Bundelkhand, as identified with the help of our communities in the radius of the radio station, is to work along with them to use this communication medium to create awareness, give information, participate in local self governance and provide entertainment – all based on requests and feedback from the community. The audience includes the communities in the radius of the broadcast range – with special attention to women, youth and the marginalised groups.

Listening to Radio Bundelkhand

Community Members on the Radio

The community and DA, jointly manage the station. There are five community reporters and six community coordinators. The villages these reporters represent are Azadpura, Ramnagar, Sitapur, Basova, Bagan, Bhagwantpur, Ghatao, Jamuniya, Gujerra Kalan, Mathrapur and Ghatao. There is also a Management Committee comprising the Sarpanch (elected village-head) of Basova Village, doctors, farmers and Self Help Group members.

Until now, Radio Bundelkhand has the longest duration of programming of four hours a day, seven days a week, in Bundelkhandi and Hindi amongst the government licensed community radio stations in India. The Government of India has given licenses to several NGOs throughout India to start community radios in their project areas. DA is one of the first to set up such a radio with the communities it has been serving for more than two decades in the Bundelkhand region.

The communities have decided that they would like information related to employment and livelihood opportunities, development of women, girl’s education, legal rights, farmers’ issues, training, their culture and history, how to ensure the availability of basic infrastructure such as water, energy and roads, development issues, and any other information sought by the communities. The broadcast timings in the morning and evening have been selected by the communities, with the women preferring the morning and the men the evening.

The programming, based on issues and content identified by the communities, is broadcast in the formats which they have preferred, that include the use of traditional Bundelkhandi songs, folk music and nataks, discussions, reports, commodity prices, phone-ins, experts speak, coverage of events in villages, jokes and satire, listeners’ letters and feedback. The Wireless Operating License was issued on July 31st, 2008 and the first transmission took place on August 15 2008 with the broadcast of the national anthem. Meanwhile the selected community reporters were trained over three months and a woman from Sitapur village inaugurated the station on the eve of Diwali. Community radio broadcasting/narrowcasting has allowed the rural poor to develop their communication in a language they understand. Community radio fosters debate on issues, facilitates access to government, decision-making and helps community members to organise themselves and evolve to manage their own affairs. Radio Budelkhand is characterised by its signature tune and jingles which declare that it is “Apna Radio Apni Baatein” – Our radio Our conversations.

Reaching our communities

The reach of the community radio is in a wide range of approximately 5-10 kms and 25 villages with a population of 15000 in the coverage area that are benefiting through the infotainment-based programmes. So far, Radio Bundelkhand radio has penetrated to the rural communities settled in and around TARAgram Orchha like the villages of Gundrai, Chandravan, Bagan, Orchcha, Sitapur, Azadpura, Lachmanpura.

The targeted beneficiaries are the marginalised and poorest with special emphasis on women and the unemployed youth who are the most vulnerable but also the potential change-makers. By selecting women community reporters, marginalised community reporters in an average age group of 20 we hope to reach them better.
The Management Committee also has a woman self-help group head. DA aims to ensure the participation of local people for the programming, broadcast and management of the station by the community itself.

The above article was written by Indira Mansingh, Chief Advisor, Development Alternatives.

Thank you Purnima Gupta for sending this across!
Previous article of Development Alternatives – Click here.

I recently came across RangDe.org which takes the concept of microfinance to the online world.

It serves as a bridge between ’social investors’ and people who need small amounts of money to improve their business and financial position. For your investment, you stand to earn 3.5% per annum. Of course, this is not guaranteed since the money is being lent to low income households and the probability of default could be high. Having said that, it is interesting to see from their statistics that 100% of the loans have been paid back so far.

You can go through the list of borrowers, with a brief on why they need that extra money and you can then decide to invest accordingly. If you don’t have the time to select a borrower, you can also do something known as “Smart Invest” where RangDe picks borrowers on their behalf.

To cover their costs, RangDe charges an interest rate of 8.5% pa to the borrowers and retains 5% of that, handing over the remaining 3.5% to you, the investor.

It is an interesting service, and it will be all the more interesting to see how they fare in the coming years. Visit Rangde.org and see if you would like to be a part of their social investment spectrum.

This article originally appeared here.

Up until very recently, it was believed that Ultra Violet (UV) rays from the sun can inhibit, or even prevent, formation and continuance of life. However, a team of Indian Scientists, led by the eminent Jayant Narlikar, has discovered 3 new types of bacteria which are UV resistant. What is even more fascinating is that this experiment has shown that life exists even 40 km above Earth’s surface!

K. Raghu carries an article in The Mint and mentions that the experiment involved sending a balloon in to the stratosphere of our planet. He goes on to write:

The balloon sent up to the stratosphere was the second effort by India after a maiden venture in 2001. It contained probes that collected air samples at different heights ranging from 20km to 41km above the earth’s surface.

This is a great breakthrough for Indian science, specifically so since it could alter the way we have been defining life and its necessary environments.
Read the complete article at The Mint by clicking here.
Image courtesy: The Mint

Prof. AV Ramani

A Chemical Engineer and lecturer at IIT Madras is an unusual candidate to have worked on a heart valve that has drastically reduced the cost of such a medical procedure, in turn bringing relief to millions of poor cardiac patients in Asia. However, Professor AV Ramani has done just this.

The Heart Valve Prosthesis

damage to their heart valves. The device – an indigenous heart valve, which costs a fraction of the imported ones in use at the time, has been created after years of research and hard work.

Developed at the Chitra Thirunal Institute (CTI) under the patronage of Dr.Valiathan and Prof. S. Ramaseshan, the heart valve adheres to all international standards and has a titanium-based metal cage that is long-lasting and wear-resistant. The engineering demands of such a valve were very high. Deepa Mohan tells us more about the requirements of such a machine in this article for Citizen Matters, a Bangalore based news magazine:

“It is worth remembering,” points out Prof. Ramani, “that the life of the heart valve IS the life of the patient”. The human heart beats about 80,000 times a day. For even a ten year life-span, the valve would have to function for at least 400 million cycles, which means a very high-precision engineering requirement, and, because the heart valve, typically, would be surgically implanted in younger people, it needs to be something that would last for a ‘normal’ lifetime.

Important decisions like allowing contributing partners to retain their intellectual property rights under a concept of joint ownership, and designing the valve specifically for Asian anatomy, where the valve dimensions are different from those of the western population, were other factors contributing to the success and prominence of the venture. Once developed, the challenge of marketing and large-scale manufacture of the product was undertaken by the TTK group, which set up a unit for this in Bangalore.

The indigenous heart valve is, in the words of Deepa Mohan:

..a living proof of how academicians, government officials and business people can work together with great synergy to bring out a product that is both profitable and beneficial.

Read the complete interesting article here.
Image Courtesy: Deepa Mohan in Citizen Matters

Link Courtesy: Uday Arya. Thanks a ton!

Update: The ToI today carries an article stating that this entire piece of news does not seem to be validated. Most likely the device is just capable of simple computing operations and not as full-fledged as a laptop. End of update

Laptops and the internet are more or less ubiquitous for most urban high school students. However, the cost barrier is still high and hence only a limited section of the student population can afford it. This is poised to change in the near future with the advent of a new Rs. 500 laptop (currently in prototype phase)
This Rs. 500 laptop prototype will be on display on February 3rd at Tirupati. This prototype is a joint effort by the students of Vellore Institute of Technology, scientists in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IIT-Madras and involvement of Public Sector Units like Semiconductor Complex.

Akshaya Mukul writes in this article at the Times of India:

The $10 laptop project, first reported in TOI three years ago, has come as an answer to the $100 laptop of MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte that he was trying to hardsell to India. 

“At this stage, the price is working out to be $20 but with mass production it is bound to come down,” R P Agarwal, secretary, higher education said.

Another very interesting launches on this day will be those of an e-classroom, a virtual laboratory and an improved version of the existing ‘Sakshat’ portal.
The following is an interesting turn of events:

Sources also said that the ministry has entered into an agreement with four publishers — Macmillan, Tata McGraw Hill, Prentice-Hall and Vikas Publishing — to upload their textbooks on ‘Sakshat’. Five per cent of these books can be accessed free. 

Of course, all these initiatives also require that the current infrastructure be improved significantly. The article mentions that:

In this context, government would give Rs 2.5 lakh per institution for 10 Kbps connection and subsidise 25% of costs for private and state government colleges. 

The mission would seek to extend computer infrastructure and connectivity to over 18,000 colleges in the country, including each department of nearly 400 universities and institutions of national importance.

It is wonderful to see that the government and other institutions are coming together to herald in a new age of education and making use of technology to drive positive change.

Read the complete article here.
Image courtesy: incasoftware.co.uk

Virendra Kumar Sinha is a resident of Belbanwa colony, Motihari town in the East Champaran district of Bihar. He possessed a generator set which started inviting many complaints from his neighbours and other people of the colony. After being told that the set is causing too much sound and air pollution, Virendra decided to do something about it himself. The result: A silencer which not only reduces the sound levels but also decreases the level of carbon emission!

An article in The Mint reports about Virendra and his innovation:

Virendra Kumar Sinha, a resident of Belbanwa colony of the Motihari town, has invented the silencer-cum-exhaust filter for the generator set after a hard work of six years. 

Sinha said his product was put under test in three stages in the laboratory of Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Ranchi, where it was proved that the product was capable of reducing about 60 to 70 per cent of the harmful carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide gases emitted by generators.

The invention has now been patented by Virendra.

Considering that a huge number of generator sets are being used in India, and that this invention helps in bringing down carbon emissions signficantly, it is a great boost to reducing the levels of pollution of our country. We look forward to this invention being rapidly delivered to all generator sets and at minimal costs, thereby helping India’s environment in the long run!

Read the complete article here.

Image courtesy: www.merrylandmoonwalks.com

Perhaps not many Indians know him, but he is widely credited to have been the inspiration for Nobel laureate Al Gore’s interest in climate change. Now, renowned environmental scientist Dr. Ashok Khosla has plans for creating 100 million jobs by 2018 in rural India. As founder and chairman of Development Alternatives, a New Delhi-based non-profit involved in the creation of micro-factories that would make basic facilities available to the village-dwellers, and enable them to generate employment. The initiative has already created 3 million jobs over the past 15 years.

Sunita Sohrabji writes in indiawest.com about the ideas and ideals of the man who is the brain behind the successful $120 million venture:

“Poor people are seeing more products, but have little access to them. The poor do not have purchasing power,” said Khosla, the 2002 winner of the United Nations’ Sasakawa Environmental Prize, and the Schwab Foundation’s outstanding social entrepreneur award in 2004. Khosla, an alumnus of Cambridge and Harvard, was recently made an Officer of the British Empire.

Development Alternatives uses a market based approach to further its cause, rather than relying on charity. Wondering how it works?

In a typical model, the village will form a cooperative to purchase the equipment needed for the project, and determine wages for the workers, typically slightly above the area’s minimum wage. Development Alternatives’ social enterprise arm, Technology and Action for Rural Advancement, markets the products created by the villagers.

The organization’s compressed earth block technology is being used throughout the country to ease the shortage in housing for rural dwellers. More than half a million homes have been built using the technology, in which villagers mix raw earth with a stabilizer to create a brick, with a mechanized or manual soil press.

The organization believes in innovating to create new opportunities for the poor, and lays particular emphasis on social as well as environmental sustainability.

TARA and Development Alternatives have also created a new-generation weaving machine that allows its user to be more productive and create higher-quality handlooms.

The organization has also created a paper-making machine, which recycles wastepaper and cotton rags into high-end paper goods, or standard paper for use in classrooms.

This is not all. Besides helping the villagers in improving their agricultural output, Development Alternatives has now started a new project – franchised village cyber kiosk. Called Tara-kendras, these centres can impart vocational training, career counseling, agricultural and medical advice, a market place for buying and selling as well as accessing government services.

“This is one of the most revolutionary things we’ve developed,” said Khosla. “It brings the village into the global economy and the global economy into the village.”

“It’s extreme value at very low cost and one of the major solutions to solving the problem of poverty in India,” he asserted. Three hundred Tara-kendras are currently in operation throughout the country, and the enterprise will become profitable when 1,000 kiosks are established.

The efforts of Development Alternatives and Dr. Khosla are laudable. He has several awards and achievements to his name, not the least of which is that as a Harvard teaching fellow, he was responsible for designing and teaching the very first class on the environment! Yes, the same that Gore took during his first year there!! In spite of all his success, Dr. Khosla’s heart lies with India’s rural poor, and his endeavors speak highly of his commitment.

Development Alternatives and TARA have taken some innovative steps in promoting rural employment. Read more on these in the article here.

Image courtesy: indiawest.com

Act Now For The Better India.

There is a new trend in website hosting. It’s called “Green Hosting”. The essential premise is that some of the money paid by the website developer will be used by the website hosting company to host the website on a carbon-neutral server, viz one whose carbon emissions are offset by the web-hosting company’s green activities like planting trees or purchase of carbon credits. While this concept is widely in use by some of the American web-hosting companies, it is starting off in a small way in India. It needs to create a lot more awareness to get the requisite impetus to make a large difference.

Aditi Utpat of Times of India explores this phenomenon in its infancy and talks about the steps being taken to promote it. Although she has found only one website as of now, the Pune Gourmet Club Association, who has adopted the green hosting feature for its new website, we all hope this is just the beginning of a whole new internet revolution.

While an extensive search by TOI threw up only one website that was hosted on a green server, Znet India, one of the country’s largest web-hosting companies, has confirmed that they have up to 100 clients who have opted for green hosting.

Munesh Singh, CEO of the Noida-based company, said, “Our contributions have helped towards the purchase of one hectare of land in Noida. Our staff are taking responsibility to grow trees on this land. This is a long-term project and will take twenty years before the forest becomes well-grown. The whole project is expected to sequester some 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide while making a real contribution to wildlife conservation.”

And since reducing (or neutralising) one’s carbon footprint attracts benefits from the government, green hosting is actually more cost efficient in the long run than conventional hosting.

Be it to reduce costs, gain publicity or make a difference, the efforts of web hosting companies to introduce and popularize the concept of green hosting will have long term benefits. It is good to know that corporate India is taking note, and the idea is getting the support of organizations like NASSCOM and the government.

Directi, a multinational conglomerate, told TOI that the Green IT’ agenda is gaining momentum in India and has already attracted private and government funding.

Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi, added that while the company does not undertake green hosting initiatives of its own, green hosting is sure to become “increasingly popular” among the consumers, as “concern for the environment increases”.

So while we have a long way to go before we can boast of a ‘green internet’, it is still a great sign that web-hosting companies and consumers in India are waking up to the fact that there is a way to do things in a more environmentally friendly manner, and are playing an active role in propagating it. The Better India supports them in their efforts, and is also now attempting to move to a green server on its part.

Do read the complete article here.
Link Courtesy: Munesh Singh, CEO and Founder – ZNet India
Image Courtesy: www.metaefficient.com